Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Nintendo Digital Event 2015: A Swing and A Miss-- But It Didn't Have to Be

Perhaps you're not of the opinion that Nintendo's Digital Event for E3 2015 this past Tuesday was a failure. That's quite okay as an opinion, but it's one that makes you in the minority. A great number of people found the Digital Event more than disappointing. However, it really is bewildering to me because it didn't have to be a disappointment. It could have been something actually successful had it possessed better organization.

No, I don't mean throwing in an announcement of a "true" 3D Metroid or anything of that stature. I'm not talking about revealing that a game is in development that doesn't even exist yet. I mean that first of all, Nintendo could have staggered its announcements from E3 week much better. For instance, Nintendo revealed a lot of announcements within a Nintendo Micro Direct a week or so prior to E3. These included localization announcements of Bravely Second, Little Battlers Experience (or LBX), and the new Nintendo 3DS Chibi Robo game. These could have been saved for the Nintendo Digital Event to excite fans.

Even the Super Smash Bros. Direct that took place this past Sunday could have been implemented into the Digital Event instead to make for some very exciting announcements. The announcements of Street Fighter's Ryu and Fire Emblem's Roy could have been quite intriguing announcements to fill fans with hype at the Digital Event rather than being unveiled earlier.

What was most disappointing about the Digital Event was that many of us assumed that Nintendo was getting all of these announcements prior to the event out of the way because there was so much left to show during the event itself. This turned out to be a false assumption, and one that very much angered plenty of Nintendo fans. Well, they are some of the most emotional fans out there...

Just imagine, if you will, if Nintendo had saved the localization announcements from the Nintendo Micro Direct and the news from the Super Smash Bros. Direct from Sunday for the Digital Event. There would have been so much more to be excited about definitely. Instead, what we got were overly long developer interviews, one for a game that is due out really soon in PAL territories, Yoshi's Woolly World; a lengthy Skylanders Superchargers segment (which at least showed what little third-party support the Wii U still has); and while entertaining, puppet segments that seemed to have more love put into them than the actual way the announcements were shown.

That said, I'm not of the opinion that Nintendo hurt my feelings or betrayed me by their E3 showing. I'm quite interested in a lot of the games they unveiled (The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, Metroid Prime: Federation Force-- I won't go into detail about the entitled man-baby change.org petition to cancel the game because it hurt their feelings-- Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, Fire Emblem: Fates, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, etc.). It's just the messaging and how the announcements were arranged that completely confuse me-- really showing me that Nintendo truly doesn't have a clue.

While the sky won't fall because of a poor E3 showing, Nintendo does have to step it up if it wants to keep gamers thinking it is a relevant company within the video game world. Showings like its Digital Event do not help in this instance. While Nintendo was never going to wow gamers as well as Microsoft or Sony (I doubt anyone could after Xbox One backwards compatibility and news of The Last Guardian, Shenmue 3, and a Final Fantasy VII remake), it could have done a lot better and a lot more to keep itself from being the odd console maker out this E3.